Our life in the foothills of Calaveras County, California. The pond is at the center of everything. In case we should forget, the bullfrogs yell it out all summer long. A noisy place, but home.

Pond!

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

And Yet Another Snake

I've been full-on working on getting my classroom ready for the start of school. Next Thursday is our Back to School Night, so the pressure's on. I'm still not at all sure how or what I'll be teaching this coming year -- but I did get my desk cleaned out!

Bruce and I are still chipping away at cleaning things up the area around the house -- I'm beginning to think that what we need is a crew of three strong workers to put in three hours a day. For the rest of their/our lives. No matter how much we rake, haul, prune, shovel, water, weed and wack there's always so much more. Well, onward ho!

While cleaning out the kennel we used for last year's meat chickens, I lifted up a plywood board that had fallen. Underneath was curled an annoyed little rattlesnake. We glared at each other for a moment and then I gently laid down the board again. This made for the fourth snake of the season, so dealing with it has become routine. I went over to where Bruce was leaf blowing in front of the chicken coop and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned off the blower, I said "Snake" and he had the little guy caught with the snake tongs and dropped in a lard bucket within 5 minutes.

Bruce and the snake left for the rock wall down the road where we released the other three snakes and was back home again ten minutes later with the empty bucket.

Then he went back to leaf blowing and I finished cleaning out that kennel.

I'm hoping that this is the last of the clutch that I assume hatched out here. I will say, though, that we have a lot fewer mice in the barn this summer...

2 comments:

No, four snakes is a lot for one summer (thank God!). Since three of them look like they hatched this spring, I think that they're "littermates." I'm thrilled not to have the mice -- just wish the hunters were nice little gopher snakes or king snakes...

About Me

My husband and I live in a small house by a small pond that is just past the first and smallest foothill of the mighty Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Our nearest town has the rather large name of Copperopolis, but the town itself is also very small. During the school year I drive my small car down into the valley to teach 4th grade at – you guessed it – a smallish school. On both a grand and a personal scale, life is too short and too miraculous to be taken for granted. This chronicle of our life here at Frogpond Acres is one way for me to remain mindful and appreciative of the many not-so-small wonders and blessings that surround us.